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Postings from March 2011
On Fri, 4 Mar 2011 23:20:29 +0100, Abigail <abigail@abigail.be> wrote: > On Fri, Mar 04, 2011 at 10:17:48PM +0100, Leon Timmermans wrote: > > On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 6:11 PM, Dave Rolsky <autarch@urth.org> wrote: > > > Because people are used to reading docs on the web for almost everything. > > > Heck, even for Perl modules, I often go to search.cpan.org because it > > > provides a better interface for reading the docs. > > > > Me too. `perldoc -f` is the only perldoc functionality I use, anything > > longer I'll open a tab for in my browser. > > > > > Just because you (and other people on this list) are very comfortable with > > > the status quo does not mean that it's good for everyone. I think we need to > > > spend a lot more effort thinking about what's best for new users. What does > > > a college kid getting into programming need to get started with Perl? > > > > Part of it is a generation gap. I can't noticing the man-users are > > primarily people who (AFAIK) started using perl in the early 90s. > > > > > I'd think they are the people who've actually have the experience of > debugging a problem on a box in the server room, with just a dumb > terminal and no easy access to the big bad outside world. > > Now, *I*'m Perl savvy enough I know there's perldoc. But not everyone > who needs to do debugging at 3 AM will realize that. Unix system > adminstrators know man. They expect man to work. And they'll consider > anything that doesn't come with man pages broken (and resist having > such applications installed). > > Now, I don't care what people do with perldoc. Make it use <blink> and > play podcasts of someone reading the documentation. > > Just leave the man pages. I just did a round of hands-up at the Dutch Perl Workshop with about 45 people present ranging from beginner to expert. Who uses ... to read perl (module) documentation: - grep/cat 5 - man 12 - perldoc almost all - perldoc -f almost all - perldoc -m 4 - perldoc -l 3 - perldoc -q 4 - local html 1 - cpan site all - other web 7 - vi 6 -- H.Merijn Brand http://tux.nl Perl Monger http://amsterdam.pm.org/ using 5.00307 through 5.12 and porting perl5.13.x on HP-UX 10.20, 11.00, 11.11, 11.23 and 11.31, OpenSuSE 10.1, 11.0 .. 11.3 and AIX 5.2 and 5.3. http://mirrors.develooper.com/hpux/ http://www.test-smoke.org/ http://qa.perl.org http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/Thread Previous | Thread Next